Sara Robinson, one of my favorite bloggers, had a really fantastic post at the CAF blog about why we have responsible government to thank for the relative lack of damage to the 5.4 earthquake that hit Southern California yesterday.

The fact that Los Angeles returned to normal (as if anything in Los Angeles can ever be considered normal) within just a few hours is one of those invisible but important lessons in the collective power of a functioning government — the kind of non-controvertible, essential fact that conservatives tend to gloss right over when they talk about shrinking government until they can drown it in a bathtub.

California’s seismic codes are serious, strict, and effective. The state has been working on them for 80 years now, refining them through the years after every major quake to incorporate new knowledge and engineering practices. (A major revision this year has recently sent all the state’s architects, engineers, and contractors back to school yet again.) To see the results of this ongoing effort, consider the 1931 Long Beach quake, a 6.4 shaker that damn near flattened Long Beach, killed 120 people, and caused over $40 million (in 1931 dollars) in property damage. And then reflect on the fact that in 1989, it took a quake eleven times bigger — the 7.1 Loma Prieta quake — to create a comparable amount of damage.

That’s how effective the improvements have been. These days, most new structures are hardened to the point that you’d need at least a 7.0 (well over 10 times the size of today’s quake) before things seriously started shaking apart. In many parts of the planet, a 5.8 quake would be enough to level towns, collapse bridges, and take out decades’ worth of infrastructure. In LA and SF, all that happens is a few people lose their phones and power for a few hours.

It really is remarkable what serious attention to building codes has done.  Not too long ago yesterday’s earthquake would have been a disaster – today it’s a blip.  California has recognized the problem, taken steps to constantly improve and innovate, and made sure that the regulations stayed stringent, so that developers would just have to find other means to reduce costs.  The fact that the epicenter was around Chino Hills and Diamond Bar, relatively new areas with new buildings that were constructed according to the strictest building codes, was only a further testament to that.  The after-action reports from the 1989 San Francisco quake and the 1994 Northridge quake were taken seriously and applied in this case.

Diane at Cab Drollery has more:

Now, when the “big one” hits Southern California (the prediction is one with a magnitude 7.8 occurring along the San Andreas fault), we won’t be so lucky, especially with respect to damage. Knowing that, local authorities hold regular emergency drills so that the human devastation can be minimized. One such drill is scheduled for this November and involves a consortium of cities and services.

All of this shows why Grover Norquist was wrong, deadly wrong, with his ideal of shrinking government until it fits in a bathtub and then drowning it. When government does what it is supposed to do, real security for citizens is enhanced.

We have a group of Norquist followers here in this state called the California Republican Party.  And we have to be vigilant that they don’t roll back government in response to budget shortfalls in ways that make the state far less safe.  For instance, in Dan Weintraub’s think piece today trying to envision what he considers an imminent budget, this part is worrying:

• It is going to include some borrowing. That’s not exactly going out on a limb, given the recent history of this governor and these legislators […]

Lawmakers, for instance, might find a way to tap into local government funds, despite a voter-approved initiative that makes that option more difficult than before. Also, the governor’s proposal to borrow against future state lottery earnings, an idea he calls “a gift from the future,” is still very much alive. I would not be surprised if a scaled-down version of the governor’s plan emerged as part of this package.

Local governments are already cash-strapped and have no margin for error if their funding is raided.  And some of that money goes to infrastructure improvements.  Just yesterday, Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell claimed that 150,000 bridges nationwide are in need of repair or replacement.  You can add municipal buildings, roads, and a host of other issues.  If California doesn’t address this structural revenue deficit, despite the strict building codes there will arise a time when the earth moves on top of buildings that should have been replaced, or creaking infrastructure that should have been repaired.  Yesterday was a triumph – but that could be reversed.

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

On Monday, Julia, Rick Jacobs and Assemblyman Dave Jones delivered more than 28,000 petition signatures gathered by the Courage Campaign to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s front door. You can click on the link to the right for a light-hearted taste of the path traveled by our intrepid petition carriers. More than 200,000 state workers have been threatened with a pay cut to just $6.55 an hour as the budget stalemate stretches on without any end in sight. The signatures and the attention were enough to convince the Governor to delay signing such an order (which incidentally he isn’t allowed to do according to the state Legislative Analyst), but only temporarily.

In his own unique magnanimous way, Arnold’s decided to delay until Thursday. That would be tomorrow. That means we don’t have much time to drive home the point that Californians will not stand for this sort of attack on so many of the workers who keep this state functional. Just because Arnold can’t get the legislature to work doesn’t mean he should punish the people who are still getting their jobs done.

Please take this opportunity to get on the phone and call Governor Schwarzenegger. Phone numbers, a sample script, and a form to report back with your experiences are available, so get dialing cause we have a narrow window in which to get through to him. State Controller John Chiang has already stood up strongly against this proposal, but Arnold isn’t going down without a fight. As the Governor said today, “The controller has his opinion of what he wants to do. He’s a constitutional officer and he runs his office his way. I think the law is very clear that he has to follow through and do exactly of what our executive order says.”

He’s not backing down, and neither will we. But it takes people power to drive this message home, so call Arnold now.

Following up on gubernatorial trial balloons appearing in two Chronicle columns on Monday, Matier and Ross again take a look at speculation Senator Dianne Feinstein is running for Governor (it should be noted that this appears as an item following Gavin Newsom’s psychic advisor saying he’ll win and could even be president). The problem is, that DiFi would have a helluva tough time making it through a Democratic primary. Consider a few points after the jump and add ideas you have in the comments.

1. The Poll Numbers Aren’t Good

At this point in the cycle, the poll is mostly a reflection name recognition, yet still DiFi only has 50% in a two person race and I doubt any advisers to potential candidates are going to recommend folding shop with numbers that weak. I mean, she’s polling two points worse than she finished in the 1990 gubernatorial primary and the campaign hasn’t even begun.

Furthermore, the most recent SurveyUSA tracking shows Boxer with a significantly stronger approval, I result I don’t remember seeing before. But most importantly, with the internet and 24 hour news cycle the speed of politics is quickening and it should be pointed out that Feinstein’s boy Joe Lieberman was leading Ned Lamont 68-13 less than six months before losing the primary. If I were advising a potential gubernatorial candidate, that primary is one I’d suggest merits a good bit of study.

2. Her 1990 Primary Model Won’t Work this Generation

I’ll admit that I have no first hand memories of her 1990 (which is a good time to point out that people will be voting in the 2010 primary who weren’t even born for that race). But what I’ve heard and read seems to jive with this contempory analysis from the NYT (and the fact her husband funded more than half her campaign):

Her campaign also played heavily to women, arguing that only a woman could be trusted to fight off attempts to limit the right to abortion. […]

According to exit surveys by the California Poll, she ran extremely well among male voters. Her margin was 13 points among women, 9 points among men. ”Even if no women voted, Feinstein would have won,” said Mervin D. Field, director of the poll, a nonprofit, a nonpartisan, media-sponsored organization. He said that while her position on capital punishment helped, it was her forceful, charismatic style in the television age that won the election. ”It was style that did it, command presence,” he said.

Neither of these dynamics are available to her in 2010. First, choice is not an issue she can brag about defending. Other than a few weeks in the senate with HW Bush, her entire record of standing up for choice will be viewed by her caving to George W. Bush on judicial question after judicial question. She has been an unmitigated disaster on privacy and judicial questions and that talking point is out the window.

The next point is the frequently cited domination in the television age. While still relevant to a degree, numbers I’ve seen suggest that we are likely to face a situation in 2010 were more than 50% of California voters will have a Digital Video Recorder (think TiVo) by the time absentee ballots begin hitting. While political advertising staples like local evening news are programs that are less likely to be recorded by people with the devices, it still severely limits this as a path towards the nomination.

Finally, each technological age plays to the inherent strengths and skills of different types of politicians. Just like DiFi was able to gain a unique advantage by television complimenting her personality, so too is there a large advantage for candidates who are complimented well by the internet age. And the 2010 gubernatorial race is likely to be won online, in a universe foreign to her as a candidate.

3. Her Instincts are Obsolete

While age shouldn’t play a disproportionate role, the fact that Feinstein is one of the few people in America who is actually older than McCain is fair game when it comes to judging whether her political world-view is accurate or even relevant beyond the legacy power associated with being a sitting senator. My contention is that DiFi’s political calculation is based not on a firm set of beliefs, but by a political calculation based on outdated assumptions. I see the clearest example is her trying to censure Clinton for lying about a B.J. but not standing up to Bush for lying into war (a war she was fool enough to support). Her entire career is marked by her hatred of the left. From her losing for mayor (twice) to everyone trying to get her to pull out of the 1990 primary, to the constant barrage of phone calls her office fields from progressives asking her not to cave again on the latest issue, it is clear that her triangulation and fear of what the right will say is not just calculation, but a personal angst build over decades. While she was a leader in campaigning during the DLC era, those days have passed.

4. The Democratic Party has Passed Her By

Ask Phil Angelides, the CDP endorsement is a huge boost (and ask Carole Migden about the inverse of this dynamic). The people-powered movement has seen an influx of people getting more and more involved in internal party politics. This resurgence is in-spite of politicians like Feinstein, it is a direct result of the vacuum created by her style of politics. The question at the CDP is not whether DiFi should be rewarded with an endorsement for another office, but whether she should be censured for doing a miserable job in the office she currently holds. I fully expect to see yet another year of historic interest in next year’s Assembly District elections and DiFi lacks anything approximating a grassroots base. She succeeds in-spite of the base and the ability of top-down politics being able to overcome people is diminishing with each passing day.

5. President Barack Obama

In all likelihood, we are going to have a Democratic President. Yet even if he does lose, Obama is training a ton of people how to campaign in the 21st century. The same reasons that brought many of these people to Obama are likely to turn them off to Dianne Feinstein. Her campaign message as a gubernatorial candidate would be far closer to Hillary/McCain than Obama. It is tough to be the “change” candidate to “turn the page” when you lost the general election for the same office two decades earlier and are rightly seen as nearly a parody of inside-the-beltway thinking. Even if Obama doesn’t endorse, the support of his supporters is going to be worth far more than Dick Blum’s checkbook in a Democratic primary.

Dan Walters has never been a fan of Jerry Brown. In the past few years, he’s never missed a chance to call him a flip-flop artist or go after him as a Flake Extraordinaire (PDF).  We get it, Dan Walters doesn’t like “Governor Moonbeam.”

But his most recent attack is really beyond whatever logic even Dan Walters has. Dan thinks that Jerry went all cynically pro-gay by changing the title and summary of Prop 8 from “amends the California Constitution to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.”  And by doing so, Dan becomes nothing more than a Knight acolyte.

The logic behind the change is clear. Before In re Marriage Cases was decided the amendment was not really removing any already existing rights.  Today, Prop 8 would eliminate the right of gays and lesbians to marry the person they love. That is a right today that would no longer exist after. The switch only reflects the changing state of the law.

But Dan Walters simply loves going after Jerry Brown, so he attacks Brown as a sycophant to the gays. Well, I won’t deny that Brown is trying to ingratiate himself with what is a powerful Democratic voting block, but this decision only reflects the world as it is.  The courts will soon confirm that Brown did the right thing.